Dr. Tanya Byron's violent video games report

[Grim]

We need to stop panicking, get a grip, move on in the debate and just be sensible about who plays what at what age, and what's appropriate.

I think the classification system used by the industry has not worked with parents. Parents are buying games for children the children shouldn't be playing.

Responsible parenting, but it also boils down to responsible, clear classification and labelling - there are responsibilities for retailers and they need to be supportive of that. It's also for the industry about responsible marketing. I have made recommendations around the advertising of games and that needs to be thought about, and certainly in the online space there's a lot that needs to be sorted out.

Basically, Dr. Byron proposes that the current state of classifying and advertising video games be given a facelift. While the present way of labeling video games is quite successful in the formal purpose of sorting games into the age-appropriate groups, apparently as she found out parents (who are supposed to be responsible for their children's game purchases!) are not getting the most out of it or worse, do not know it exists at all. She provides these recommendations in her report.

Personally, I'm happy: finally, a person who gets it. And test findings written in an actual report!

She was pretty sparse on the details on the actual correlation between video games and violence, but basically she said yes, there was a connection, however "unclear" it was.

The research around the interactivity... the jury is still out. But, I don't know whether you got through the psychology part of my report, where I talked about neuro-statistical learning in the mirror neuron system. There is very, very new research that looks at how children learn at a neural level. Children respond to actions, young children do. Action-related experiences can be important in the laying down, at a neural level, of the way we behave.

I didn't want to add to the speculation and the polarisation of the debate and then say, 'therefore it is really clear'. Because it isn't really clear, because we're just thinking about these different kinds of neural networks involved in learning, and I'm not going to jump the gun and say things that we don't know yet. But I think at a level of brain function, if you look at the way that children set their expectations of people's behaviour at the neural level, if you look at things like the mirror neuron system where action can actually have an impact on the way neural networks are set out, and that has an impact on behaviour.

But here's the clincher, which people like Jack Thompson seem to always always miss:

So for me it's a no-brainer really. Let's just play it at that level, at the level children think and learn, and find a system supports the industry, supports the rights of adults so there are adult content games should they want them, but also really make sure that children are playing the games that do [help them].

A balanced view, which is all the industry was asking for regarding the subject.

Bravo, madam.

For the brave of heart, here's the full 226-page report.